Saturday, November 8, 2008

Unbelievable. We were able to book AND pay for our final flight from Mumbai to Cochin after nearly three weeks of trying to book that leg of the trip. Train? Nope.... Online airline reservation? No way... Obscure travel agent in Tamil Nadu who can process a North American VISA card? YESSSS!!!!! Many thanks to Chindi V. for hooking us up with her personal travel agent. What a load off. Or course, India being India, there is still the potential for things to go horribly awry, but we reamin hopeful...

Tonight however, is a time for fun and relaxation. A few months back, I thought it might be fun to do a night of music at the local pub to celebrate my 50th birthday. A few months back, it seemed like a great idea. This week, not so much. With so much going on with packing the house, making sure that we have everything we need, memorial services being planned, and trying to finalize the last leg of travel, there has been precious little bandwidth to devote to making a quality evening of music happen.

I need not have worried. Last night, we had a house full of people frantically rehearsing to perform 3 sets of music. I feel pretty lucky to have so many good friends who are also really great musicians. Even luckier that they actually wanted to donate their time to play. Our old friend Dave Rankin, aka Artie Devlin (he's the one who introduced me to Laurel) will be playing guitar and mandolin, and also lending his fabulous voice to the evening. Buff Allen, one of the finest drummers in the country, generously agreed to play. He even brought me a wonderful bottle of Scotch! Pete Robinson, a relatively new friend on Bowen is also playing acoustic and electric guitars, and singing. My dear old friend Doug Johnson, who for more than 20 years has been a good bud AND the keyboard player from Loverboy will be tickling the ivories. Not many people know that he's a pretty smokin jazz player. Chris Coon, whose CD "License To Depart" I just produced, will be performing a few numbers off the disc, and contributing some percusssion. The there is the coterie of vocalists, dubbed last night to be the "Comfy Couch Choir" consists of my good friend Tony Dominelli, Brenda Reid, and Louise Escalier. What a trip to hear those voices rising up to help my little croak actually sound half decent. We're going to do a bluegrass/folk set, a set of jazz standards, and a set of electronica/funk/dance music.

That's why I love living here. An amazing community of beautiful and talented people that I'm proud to call my friends. Is there any better 50th birthday gift?